(POLITIKAN)- NATO’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was admitted to Denmark’s national university hospital Rigshospitalet this week for an arm fracture operation, but his admission caused the hospital to relegate an incurable cancer patient from her single-bed ward to an office.

Susanne Larsen, 44, who is suffering from incurable bone marrow cancer and has had to have implants to help her manage a collapsed back, was being treated in a single-bed ward - until NATO’s Secretary-General arrived for treatment for a fractured arm, according to Ekstra Bladet.

Fogh Rasmussen fractured his arm last week after falling off his bicycle during a bicycle ride in Brussels.

To accommodate NATO’s Secretary-General, hospital staff removed Larsen to a windowless office without an emergency alarm. Staff told her that if she needed attention she should bang on a teacup with a spoon.

The photo must be during President Obama during his visit to the state Wednesday.

Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, offered a $100 reward on Wednesday to anyone who snaps a photo today of Bob Casey, the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, with President Obama during his visit to the state.

"I've got $100 dollars... for any person that can get us a picture here," Priebus told reporters on a conference call. Priebus said that in an effort to distance himself from the president and his low approval ratings, Casey may suddenly come down with a "24 hour flu."

Rob Gleason, the chairman of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, said on the call that he would be "shocked" if Casey fails to make an appearance.

Featuring 28 pages of tasty recipes from the Paul family and friends, this much-in-demand and collectible cookbook will “warm your kitchen and your heart.” Packed full of photos of the entire Paul family, the book also includes Carol Paul’s “The American Dream” which briefly recounts the history of Ron Paul and the Paul Family.

“I know you hear a lot of folks on cable TV claiming that I am this ‘big tax and spend liberal.’ Next time you hear that, you just remind the people who are saying it that since I’ve taken office, I’ve cut your taxes. Your taxes — your taxes today, the average middle class family, your taxes today are lower than when I took office. Just remember that. We have cut taxes for small businesses, not once, not twice, but 17 times. The average family’s tax burden is among the lowest it’s been in the last 60 years. So the problem is not that we’ve been raising taxes. We’ve been trying to give families a break during these tough times,” Obama said at a campaign event in Scranton, Penn.

In the video, President Obama touts the alleged 17 small business tax cuts he claims to have signed. The list can be found on this White House blog. Ironically, after forcing businesses to buy health insurance for employees or pay a penalty in 2014 as part of Obamacare, President Obama included, in the list of 17 small business tax credits, the Obamacare tax credit some small businesses can get to partially offset the cost of providing employee healthcare. The credit phases out in the future. The requirement to provide employee healthcare continues.Even the liberal Washington Post recognizes President Obama tells whoppers about tax cuts.

By "a few lunatics," I mean as opposed to a whole bunch of lunatics. Just watch the video from Occupy Portland. Please keep in mind, President Obama and Democrats are supporting these seemingly deranged individuals.

This is why Mitt Romney will not be the GOP presidential candidate in 2012. Anyone who thinks it is OK for the government, even on a state level, to force citizens to buy a private product because they are alive and live in that state has no understanding of the word "liberty."

Mitt Romney refused to criticize his Massachusetts health-care program tonight, saying he would prefer to lose the primary rather than renounce it.

“I’m standing by what I did in Massachusetts,” Romney said on Fox News Channel’s Special Report with Bret Baier. “I’m not trying to dust it aside. I’m absolutely firm that it was the right thing for our state. I’ll defend that and I understand it has political implications. And if it keeps me from winning a primary, so be it. But that happens to be the truth.”

“It’s by far, the biggest challenge I have in the primary race,” Romney admitted, before going on to criticize his rivals. “And if I were willing to say anything to get elected, wouldn’t I just say, ‘oh, it was a mistake,’ because I’ve watched other people on the stage when they talk about their cap-and-trade policies, they say, ‘oh, that was a mistake.’ When someone says, ‘oh, I did this ad on global warming,’ that was a mistake. So they’ve just brushed it aside.”

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Rep. Maxine Waters may take over as top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee after the retirement of Rep. Barney Frank. It doesn't get anymore bat sh*t crazy than her.

Wall Street executives are bracing for the possibility that Rep. Maxine Waters will take over as the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee after Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) retires.

Waters, an outspoken California liberal who is considered to the left of Frank on financial and housing issues, suggested in a statement Monday that she is laying the groundwork to become the senior Democrat on the panel.

“As the next most senior member of the committee, the current ranking member on the Capital Markets subcommittee and the former chair of the Housing and Community Opportunity subcommittee, I hope to use my experience to continue and expand his work in the committee,” Waters said.

Anthropogenic global warming believers must be pleased. They have suggested we eat our pets.

(Technorati)- Horse slaughter plants are legal again in the United States. Restrictions on horse meat processing for human consumption have been lifted. courtesy of Google Images

In a bipartisan effort, the House of Representatives and the United States Senate approved the Conference Committee report on spending bill H2112, which among other things, funds the United States Department of Agriculture. On November 18th, as the country was celebrating Thanksgiving, President Obama signed a law, allowing Americans to kill and eat horses. Essentially, one turkey was pardoned in the presence of worldwide media while in the shadows, buried under pages of fiscal regulation, millions of horses were sentenced to death.

Horse slaughter has been prohibited in the United States as funding for inspections of horses in transit and at slaughter houses was non-existent. This worked because the horse meat cannot be sold for human consumption without such inspections. The House version of the bill retained the de-funding language and the Senate version did not. The conference committee charged with reconciling the two opted to not include it. The result is that it is now legal to slaughter horses for humans to eat.

Newt Gingrich stands to benefit if Herman Cain were to withdraw or lose support in the Republican presidential race, according to a Public Policy Poll released on Tuesday.

Gingrich has a much better favorability rating with Cain supporters than does Mitt Romney. Seventy-three percent of Cain supporters view Gingrich favorably, while only 33 percent have a favorable view of Romney.

Gingrich is also the consensus second choice among Cain voters, with 37 percent saying Gingrich would be their back-up to Cain, compared to 14 percent for Michele Bachmann, 13 percent for Romney, and 12 percent for Perry.

Democrats on the NLRB are plotting to change union election rules before recess appointments expire.

(CNS News) — The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is set to vote Wednesday on a package of controversial changes to the rules governing union elections while the Board still has a Democratic majority.

Designed to ease the process of unionizing a workplace, the changes come as Democratic member Craig Becker’s recess appointment expires at the end of the year.

The NLRB’s lone Republican, Brian Hayes, said the two Democrats on the Board are “committed” to changing the rules before Becker is forced to leave at the end of the current congressional session. “Indeed, I was advised of this fact by the Board’s Chairman,” Hayes wrote in a November 18 letter to House Education and Workforce Committee chairman Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.).

Currently, only three people — two Democrats and one Republican — serve on the five-member NLRB because President Obama has not found nominees who would be approved by Senate Republicans.

Minnesota Public Radio reports, “A loophole in the federal health care overhaul would allow many employers to game the system by dumping their sicker employees [into] public health insurance exchanges, according to two University of Minnesota law professors.” Such “targeted dumping” of sicker employees would cause Obamacare’s taxpayer-subsidized exchanges to cost more — potentially far more — than the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has projected. [...]

“[T]here is a substantial prospect that ACA [Obamacare] will lead some, and perhaps many, employers to implement a targeted dumping strategy designed to induce low-risk employees to retain ESI [employer-sponsored insurance] but incentivize high-risk employees to voluntarily opt out of ESI and instead purchase insurance through the exchanges that ACA establishes to organize individual insurance markets. Although ACA and other federal laws prohibit employers from excluding high-risk employees from ESI, these laws do little to prevent employers from designing their plans and benefits to incentivize high-risk employees to voluntarily seek coverage elsewhere. If successful, such a targeted dumping strategy would allow employers and low-risk employees to avoid the costs associated with providing coverage to high-risk employees. . . .”

Echoing remarks by President Obama earlier this year, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dubbed the European financial crisis a “headwind” slowing the United States economic recovery.

“It [has] created a headwind for much of the year, and continues to create that headwind,” Carney said during today’s press briefing, adding the the eurozone crisis “does remind all of us that we need to take decisive action on things that we can control” in terms of job creation.

A newly released internal audit appears to indicate that the Government Accountability Office and President Barack Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development incorrectly argued that a specific organization wasn’t ACORN-affiliated.

HUD’s office of general counsel and the GAO have both claimed that Affordable Housing Centers of America, or AHCOA, is not affiliated with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. AHCOA formerly called itself ACORN Housing, but changed its name after the 2009 ACORN meltdown.

The Obama administration has awarded more than $700,000 in taxpayer funds to AHCOA despite a 2010 law stipulating that no taxpayer funds could be awarded to ACORN “or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied organizations.”

Monday, November 28, 2011

Within four weeks, it will be a crime to manufacture a 100-watt version of Thomas A. Edison’s brilliant invention. Thanks to a Democratic Congress and the signature of President George W. Bush in 2007, anti-industrial zealots at the Energy Department received authority to blot out one of the greatest achievements of the industrial age. They’re coming for our light bulbs.

Know-it-all bureaucrats insist that foisting millions of mercury-laden fluorescent tubes on the public is going to be good for the planet. The public obviously does not agree. Voting with their wallets, people have overwhelming favored warm, nontoxic lighting options over their pale curlicue imitators. Beginning Jan. 1, Obama administration extremists will impose massive financial penalties on any company daring to produce a lighting product that fully satisfies ordinary Americans.

The Republican House hasn’t done enough to stop this. Rep. Michael C. Burgess, Texas Republican, added language to the Energy and Water Appropriations bill to prohibit the ban’s implementation. A Senate committee deleted this sensible amendment in September, and it’s been quite a while since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has allowed an up-or-down vote on a funding bill.

When President Barack Obama jets to Scranton, Pa., Wednesday to promote his jobs package, he'll log his 56th event in a presidential battleground state this year, putting him well ahead of President George W. Bush's record-breaking swing-state travel in 2003. ...

Between Jan. 1 and Nov. 17 of his third year in office, Bill Clinton held 40 events over 24 days in the battlegrounds of his time, according to data compiled by Brendan Doherty, a US Naval Academy assistant professor who is widely viewed among political scientists as an expert on presidential travel. Over that same stretch, George W. Bush held 49 events in 34 days, drawing complaints from Democrats. ...

In an electoral system where winning swing states is crucial, Obama's 11 events in Virginia, 10 in Florida, eight in Pennsylvania and seven in North Carolina are to be expected, said Doherty. Obama also has granted about 50 interviews this year with local news outlets, the majority from swing states.

For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class.

All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment — professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.

Liz Cheney is a very smart woman and she may well be correct. If the choice is between Romney and Gingrich, I am a Gingrich man. I wouldn't count Rick Perry completely out yet. He still has a lot of campaign cash and proven track record., but he has to be considered a long shot.

Islam is taking over Europe at an increasing rate. Some major European cites are now 20% or more Muslim. They have attained a kind of super-minority status.

(Telegraph) — A Christian worker has launched a landmark legal action after she lost her job when she blew the whistle on what she says was a campaign of “race hate” by fundmentalist Muslims.

Nohad Halawi, who worked at Heathrow Airport, is suing her former employers for unfair dismissal, claiming that she and other Christian staff at the airport were victims of systematic harassment because of their religion.
She claims that she was told that she would go to Hell for her religion, that Jews were responsible for the September 11th terror attacks, and that a friend was reduced to tears having been bullied for wearing a cross...

“This is supposed to be a Christian country, but the law seems to be on the side of the Muslims.”

A mother of two, she says that she had always got on well with her Muslim colleagues and relations between staff of different faiths had been good in the past, but that the atmosphere became increasingly uncomfortable with a growing number of employees espousing “fundamentalist Islam”.

Saturday night allied forces bombed 2 miles inside Pakistan's border and hit Pakistani troops. The details are murky ATM. Tensions were already high with Pakistan because they didn't like our Seal Team killing Osama bin Laden inside their borders. Pakistan has also cut off NATO supply routes into Afghanistan. We should cut off all Pakistan's aid money and start building a closer relationship with India.

(Sydney Morning Herald) — THE Pakistani government has responded to NATO air strikes that killed at least 25 soldiers by ordering the CIA to vacate the drone operations it runs from Shamsi Air Base in northern Pakistan and closing the two main NATO supply routes into Afghanistan.

Pakistani officials said that NATO aircraft hit two military posts at the northwestern border with Afghanistan. The country’s supreme army commander called the attacks unprovoked acts of aggression.

The CIA was given just 15 days to stop its drone operations. Among the two NATO supply routes into Afghanistan shut by the government was the one at Torkham. NATO forces receive about 40 per cent of their supplies through that crossing, which runs through the Khyber Pass. Pakistani officials gave no estimate as to how long the routes would be shut down.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

British PM David Cameron's green guru is having doubts about climate change. Hopefully, they won't burn him at the stake for heresy. If you haven't been keeping up with the revelations in the Climategate 2 emails, WUWT is a good place to start.

Steve Hilton, the Prime Minister’s director of strategy and ‘green guru’, is the latest person to admit to doubts about climate change.

‘I’m not sure I believe in it,’ he announced at a meeting of the Energy Department, prompting one aide to blurt out: ‘Did I just hear that correctly?’

According to one witness, Hilton, 41, the man who coined the slogan ‘Vote Blue and Go Green’ and changed the Tory symbol from a Stalinist style torch to an eco friendly tree, said: ‘Climate change arguments are highly complex.

‘My focus has always been more on using green issues to improve the quality of life.’

Hilton famously persuaded David Cameron to go to the Arctic with a pack of huskies to prove that he was determined to combat global warming in his early days as Tory leader.

Colin Powell completely misses the point in this video where he blames the Tea Party for the divisive tone in Washington.

“They compromised — the Founding Fathers compromised on slavery. They had to in order to create a country. They compromised on the composition of the Senate, of the House, of the Supreme Court, of a president — what are the president’s powers? Can you imagine more difficult compromises today?

Compromise is how this country was founded, and unless two people in disagreement with each other don’t find a way to reach out to one another and make compromises, you don’t get a consensus that allows you to move forward.

But the Tea Party point of view of no compromise whatsoever is not a point of view that will eventually produce a presidential candidate who will win.”

He cites the founding fathers making many compromises to enact the Constitution. Undoubtedly, many compromises were made at the time. I seriously doubt the founding fathers would condone compromises being made in following the Constitution they made.The Constitution set very clear limits on the power and role of government. It is those principles the Tea Party is refusing to compromise on. Of course, we should have expected this from Colin Powell. He did vote for Obama in 2008. Powell claims he isn't sure if he will vote for Obama in 2012. After Obamacare, $4 trillion in new debt, 9% unemployment and an economy in shambles, he doesn't know if he will vote against Obama in 2012? Rush Limbaugh may have said it best:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., who calls himself “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” will endorse Texas Gov. Rick Perry next week, a source with knowledge of the endorsement told ABC News.

Arpaio espouses a hard-line stance on illegal immigration, leading raids to round up and jail illegal immigrants, and was a major proponent of the controversial Arizona immigration law. Perry has spoken with Arpaio several times over the phone since entering the presidential race.

Arpaio, a much sought after endorsement in the GOP field, plans to campaign with Perry in New Hampshire next week, the source said. The Texas governor will be in the Granite State Tuesday and Wednesday, holding three town halls and a breakfast at the Nashua Chamber of Commerce along with speaking at the New Hampshire State House.

Is it too late for Sarah Palin to enter the Republican presidential nomination sweepstakes? Conservatives4Palin hope not, and they plan to run an ad in Iowa aimed at convincing caucus-goers to draft her into the race:

Your contributions have made it possible for us to run the Palin reconsider television ad next week in the Sioux City, Iowa market. Thanks to everyone who chipped in to make it possible.
You’ll be able to see the ad that will be shown on televisions on KCAU-TV across the Sioux City, Iowa market on this blog and on youtube when it goes up next week. If you have any ideas on how to get this story more attention, let us know and feel free to push it yourself to people who may be interested. The target date for this ad going up is now November 29th as the Thanksgiving holidays pushed our initial target date of November 28th back. At the very latest, we expect to get it up on the Sioux City market on the 30th.

FALFURRIAS, Texas — While walking along a dirt road bordering his property, a South Texas farmer complained about living in fear of Mexican traffickers smuggling drugs and illegal immigrants across his land. He would later ask his visitor not to reveal his identity, for his safety and that of his family.

"I'm a citizen of the United States. This is supposedly sovereign soil, but right now it's anybody's who happens to be crossing here," he said. "I'm a little nervous being here right now. Definitely don’t come down here after dark."

The farmer said a federal law enforcement agent told him to buy a bulletproof vest to use while working in his fields. Whenever he goes out to survey his agricultural operations, he always tells his office where he is headed, and he has purchased a high-powered rifle.

"One of the basic points of the federal government is to protect the people of this nation to secure the border, and they're not doing that," he complained.

(Daily Mail) — Former U.S. President George W. Bush has cancelled a visit to Switzerland over fears he could have been arrested on torture charges.

Mr Bush was due to be the keynote speaker at a Jewish charity gala in Geneva on February 12.
But pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal investigation if he enters the country.

Criminal complaints against Mr Bush alleging torture have been lodged in Geneva, court officials said.
Human rights groups said they had intended to submit a 2,500-page case against him in the Swiss city tomorrow for alleged mistreatment of suspected militants at Guantanamo Bay.

Left-wing groups have also called for a protest on the day of his visit, leading organisers at Keren Hayesod’s annual dinner to cancel Mr Bush’s participation on security grounds.

Friday, November 25, 2011

A formal investigation into Volt fires is being opened by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

(Reuters) - U.S. auto safety regulators are opening a formal investigation into fire risks in General Motors' Volt vehicles.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Friday it was taking the step after efforts to recreate a May crash test saw fires result from two out of three crash tests performed this month.

"While it is too soon to tell whether the investigation will lead to a recall of any vehicles or parts, if NHTSA identifies an unreasonable risk to safety, the agency will take immediate action to notify consumers and ensure that GM communicates with current vehicle owners," the agency said.

Earlier this month, NHTSA disclosed that it was probing the safety of batteries used to power electric vehicles after fire broke out in a Volt battery pack three weeks after a side-impact crash test.

All they have to risk with VP Joe Biden is another gaffe. Barack Obama is toxic in many battleground states.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A year from Election Day, Democrats are crafting a campaign strategy for Vice President Joe Biden that targets the big three political battlegrounds: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, states where Biden might be more of an asset toPresident Barack Obama’s re-election campaign than the president himself.

The Biden plan underscores an uncomfortable reality for the Obama team. A shaky economy and sagging enthusiasm among Democrats could shrink the electoral map for Obama in 2012, forcing his campaign to depend on carrying the 67 electoral votes up for grabs in the three swing states.

Obama won all three states in 2008. But this time he faces challenges in each, particularly in Ohio and Florida, where voters elected Republican governors in the 2010 midterm elections.

Liberate Philadelphia/Liberate America, a Tea Party coalition of groups countering the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, are challenging the latest move by Occupy Wall Street protesters to occupy or boycott publicly traded retailers on Black Friday by instead encouraging consumers to shop on Black Friday to help the economy recover.

"At a time when our economy is most fragile and ratings agencies are talking about another downgrade of the U.S. credit rating, it's completely irresponsible for Occupy Wall Street to attempt to bring the U.S. economy to a halt on the busiest shopping day of the year," Liberate organizer and a spokesman for the Tea Party, John Sullivan, stated in a press release.

The Russian Newscaster who gave Obama the finger in a live newscast has been fired. The station claims she was giving the finger to some of her coworkers off screen.

A top Russian female newsreader who appeared to defiantly show US President Barack Obama her middle finger during a live newscast has been fired. Online footage of the incident involving news anchor Tatyana Limanova went viral in both Russia and the West causing REN TV, her employer, huge embarrassment.

REN TV, a privately owned channel controlled by associates of Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, said on Thursday it had decided to take her off air calling her actions “unacceptable” and “unprofessional”.

“On 14 November during the ‘News 24′ programme the presenter Limanova made an unacceptable gesture that was a synonym for an offensive expression,” it said in a statement.

The channel, which is broadcast to 120 million people, claimed the gesture was intended for her colleagues in the studio rather than for President Obama.

Everyone should be grateful for something on Thanksgiving. That something is Occupy Wall Street for Rev. and MSNBC host Al 'Resist We Much' Sharpton. Apparently, Al Sharpton can't be grateful for blueberry pie because Republicans are eating it all.

(Daily Caller)- Thanksgiving can mean different things to different people depending on their point of view, whether it is William Jennings Bryan suggesting it’s an acknowledgement of dependence, or Rush Limbaugh suggesting it is a lesson of self-reliance and a rejection of collectivism.

But MSNBC host Al Sharpton had something else in mind for his reflections on this holiday. On his Wednesday radio program, Sharpton gave thanks for the Occupy Wall Street movement.

“Last year we had just come out of the midterm elections where the Republicans gained 61 seats and we were under siege by the tea party,” Sharpton said. “This year, Occupy Wall Street, whatever its shortcomings, it changed the conversation to where we are now talking about economic inequality — 1 percent versus 99. I am grateful for that.”

(Washington Examiner) — Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have filed a lawsuit against Utah, the fourth state so challenged, arguing that the illegal immigration enforcement underway per a recent state law could interfere with people whose immigration status is currently under federal review.

“A patchwork of immigration laws is not the answer and will only create further problems in our immigration system,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.

DOJ contends that Utah “law enforcement could lead to harassment and detention of foreign visitors and legal immigrants who are in the process of having their immigration status reviewed in federal proceedings and whom the federal government has permitted to stay in this country while such proceedings are pending.”

The CBO now admits the Stimulus created as few as 700,000 jobs and will hurt the economy in the long run. Unfortunately, the money is already spent and our grandchildren will have to pay the bill.

(IBD) — After nearly all the stimulus money has been spent, the Congressional Budget Office now admits it cost more than advertised, did less to boost growth and will hurt the economy in the long run.

In its latest quarterly report on the economic effects of the Obama stimulus, the CBO sharply lowered its “worst case” scenario while trimming many of its upper-bound estimates for stimulus-fueled growth and employment.

The new report finds, for example, that the stimulus may have added as little as 0.7% to GDP growth in 2010 — when spending was at its peak — and created as few as 700,000 new jobs.
Both are down significantly from the CBO’s previous worst-case scenario.

Many have claimed illegal immigrants are taking jobs from American citizens. Alabama passed a tough new immigration enforcement law. We might expect to see a drop in the unemployment rate if illegal immigrants left the state to avoid the controversial and tough new immigration law. That may be what has happened in Alabama. Of course, there are other factors affecting unemployment.

(USA Today)- Nevada had the nation's highest unemployment rate for the 17th straight month. It was unchanged at 13.4%. California had the second-highest rate at 11.7%. Mississippi and Michigan had the next highest rates, both at 10.6%.

North Dakota reported the nation's lowest unemployment rate, at 3.5%. It was followed by Nebraska, at 4.2%.

Unemployment rates in Alabama, Michigan and Minnesota all dropped by a half of a percentage point — the biggest declines among states.

You may have heard of the Beverly Caribou herd (located primarily in Saskatchewan.) It has been considered one of the worlds largest at up to 280,000 caribou. In the last few years, scientists claim it completely disappeared. Global warming was listed as a primary culprit.

YELLOWKNIFE – Once, caribou wandered over the Arctic tundra in herds that took days to pass. So great were their numbers – even 20 years ago – that they were able to shake off man’s puny imprint on the great barren lands like so many flies on a rump.

“There was so much caribou all over that even our plane, our scheduled flights, couldn’t land on the airstrip,” recalled Alfonz Nitsiza of Wha Ti, a tiny aboriginal community northwest of Yellowknife.

“The caribou were on the airstrip. It was full of caribou, all our communities were.”

Today, scientists fear caribou are the new cod...

Aerial survey teams couldn’t even find enough pairs to get statistically valid data. A herd that numbered 280,000 animals only 15 years ago was simply gone...

Climate change has long been suspected as being behind the recent widespread declines.

“Weather is the only thing that would operate on that big of a landscape scale,” said Jan Adamczewski, a biologist with the N.W.T. government.

The territory is warming up faster than almost anywhere else on the globe. Temperatures already show a two-degree average increase since 1948 and higher increases further north.

Research also shows that warmer conditions are allowing southern shrubs to spread north and take over from plants such as lichen. Shrubs produce more plant material, but they aren’t very good caribou food.

“On the summer range, forage biomass is increasing, but there’s some indication that forage quality is decreasing,” Adamczewski said.

A vast herd of northern caribou that scientists feared had vanished from the face of the Earth has been found, safe and sound -- pretty much where aboriginal elders said it would be all along.

"The Beverly herd has not disappeared," said John Nagy, lead author of a recently published study that has biologists across the North relieved.

Those scientists were shaken by a 2009 survey on the traditional calving grounds of the Beverly herd, which ranges over a huge swath of tundra from northern Saskatchewan to the Arctic coast. A herd that once numbered 276,000 animals seemed to have completely disappeared, the most dramatic and chilling example of a general decline in barren-ground caribou.

But Nagy's research -- and consultation with the communities that live with the animals -- concludes differently...

It turns out that the Beverly herd has simply shifted its calving grounds north from the central barrens near Baker Lake, Nunavut, to the coastal regions around Queen Maud Gulf. Nagy's analysis of radio-tracking data showed caribou in the region once thought to belong to the Ahiak herd are, in fact, Beverly animals.

"It showed that there were two different subpopulations of caribou within that area that calved along the Queen Maud Gulf," he said. "One is migratory, which I believe is the Beverly herd."

(US News) — Despite intense and sustained efforts to woo the Arab world with money and nice words, a newly released survey of the region finds that President Obama is at the bottom of a list Arabs admire most.

Obama is admired by just 4 percent of Middle East Arabs in the new survey released by the Brookings Institution and University of Maryland.
Above him:

Democrats never planned for the super committee to succeed. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner were very naive to make a deal with Democrats.

(The Hill) — Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said the congressional supercommittee’s failure Monday to come to an agreement on spending reforms was “good news” because it will help to end the Bush-era tax cuts and give Democrats more bargaining power in budget negotiations.
Groups on the edges of both the liberal and conservative spectrums have cheered the death of the supercommittee. Liberal groups like the Progressive Change Campaign Committee were happy that programs such as Social Security and Medicare were spared, while Tea Party conservative groups applauded the breakdown in talks because no tax increases emerged from the deficit-reduction panel.

The supercommittee’s failure to reach an agreement sets in motion $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts set to take effect in 2013 through sequestration.

Half of those cuts are to defense initiatives, which has hawks in Congress vowing to undo them. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said Monday that he was readying a bill that would prevent the defense cuts.

Early this morning, history repeated itself. FOIA.org has produced an enormous zip file of 5,000 additional emails similar to those released two years ago in November 2009 and coined Climategate. There are almost 1/4 million additional emails locked behind a password, which the organization does not plan on releasing at this time.

The original link was dropped off in the Hurricane Kenneth thread at about 4 AM Eastern. It is still there.
Some initial snippets floating around the blogosphere:

<3373> Bradley: I’m sure you agree–the Mann/Jones GRL paper was truly pathetic and should never have been published. I don’t want to be associated with that 2000 year
“reconstruction”.

<3115> Mann: By the way, when is Tom C going to formally publish his roughly 1500 year
reconstruction??? It would help the cause to be able to refer to that
reconstruction as confirming Mann and Jones, etc.

<3940> Mann: They will (see below) allow us to provide some discussion of the synthetic
example, referring to the J. Cimate paper (which should be finally accepted
upon submission of the revised final draft), so that should help the cause a
bit.

<0810> Mann: I gave up on Judith Curry a while ago. I don’t know what she think’s she’s
doing, but its not helping the cause

<2440> Jones: I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the
process...

(TheDC) — This past week, anti-Obama merchandise outpaced sales of pro-Obama merchandise 79 percent to 21 percent at the online clothing store CafePress, which has been tracking sales of election-relevant items.
CafePress, an online custom merchandise shop, launched its 2012 “Election Meter” at the beginning of November but has been tracking the trends in candidate merchandise sales since April.

According to the clothier, the “Meter” successfully predicted President Obama’s victory in 2008. This week’s data represents a stark contrast to Obama’s sales during the 2008 election cycle.

For weeks now, Republicans have attacked Democrats for voicing support for the Occupy Wall Street protesters, in particular faulting the DCCC for standing up for them. And the incidents of violence and excess have led some neutral commentators to predict that Dems will pay a political price if they align themselves with the movement.

So it’s interesting to see that the DCCC is sticking by Occupy Wall Street. Indeed, the DCCC is now raising money off that recent report of a GOP-connected corporate lobbying firm’s proposed smear campaign against the movement. Nancy Pelosi has authored a DCCC fundraising email that presents this as proof that Republicans are on the side of Wall Street and against Dems and the protesters

(Politico) — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday there is only one option for President Barack Obama in the wake of the supercommitte’s failure: Announce he will veto any extension of the Bush-era tax cuts.

“All the president has to do — and I’m not trying to hold him more responsible, but he is the chief executive, he was elected to lead this country — all he’s got to do is stand up and say, ‘I will veto any extension of any of the Bush-era tax cuts’,” Bloomberg told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “Everybody. Not just the rich, but everybody.”

If Obama promises to use his veto pen, Bloomberg said, that takes the issue of taxes off the table and would spur both parties in Congress to start working together to negotiate “intelligent” spending cuts.

“If you’re going to close the deficit, you have to increase revenues and reduce expenses,” Bloomberg said. “Anybody who says you can do with one or the other is either just stupid or not telling the truth.”

Bloomberg said if Obama follows his advice, it would not only solve the country’s problem — it would also be the president’s “ticket to re-election.”

Speaker Boehner has a point. President Obama demanded the supercommittee find an additional $450 billion for his proposed "Porkulus II" stimulus bill. Republicans ignored that demand, but the Democrats on the committee couldn't.

(The Hill)- House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is blaming President Obama for the failure of the congressional supercommittee to reach a deal for cutting the federal deficit.

The Speaker’s office sent out a memo Monday morning that says the supercommittee “was unable to reach agreement because President Obama and Washington Democrats insisted on dramatic tax hikes on American job creators, which would make our economy worse.”

The memo from Boehner’s office says Obama set the deficit panel up for failure by demanding it become the vehicle for economic stimulus.

“The President designed a political strategy that doomed the committee to failure first by insisting the committee include $450 billion of his failed stimulus policies in any agreement, making deficit reduction much harder and second by issuing a veto threat warning he would not accept an agreement that did not include a job-killing tax increase,” the memo obtained by The Hill states.

In a joint news release, Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction Co-Chairmen Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) said they concluded today that they will not be able to make “any bipartisan agreement” public before the deadline.

The brief statement was mostly positive and forward-looking, saying the co-chairmen were “disappointed” at the failure but “hopeful” that Congress would act in its place.

“Despite our inability to bridge the committee’s significant differences, we end this process united in our belief that the nation’s fiscal crisis must be addressed and that we cannot leave it for the next generation to solve,” the statement said.

The two also said they hoped Congress could “build on this committee’s work.”

(IBD) — The Labor Department today announced that it had approved Trade Adjustment Assistance for the former employees of the bankrupt solar panel maker Solyndra.

That means all of the firm’s 1,100 ex-employees are eligible for federal aid packages, including job retraining and income assistance. The department has valued packages at about $13,000 a head.

Taxpayers will have to cough up yet another $14.3 million as a result of Solyndra’s bankruptcy. They are already on the hook for $528 million in federal loan guarantees to the company that are unlikely to ever be paid back.

President Obama is willing to help take out a weak country like Libya, but he lack the "cahones" to take on Iran. The Israelis don't have a choice.

(AFP) — The “time has come” to deal with Iran, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday, refusing to rule out military action to curb the Islamic republic’s nuclear ambitions.

Barak, speaking on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS program, indicated that Israel’s patience was wearing thin — and provided an ominous response when asked about the growing speculation of an Israeli military strike.

“I don’t think that that is a subject for public discussion,” he said. “But I can tell you that the IAEA report has a sobering impact on many in the world, leaders as well as the publics, and people understand that the time has come.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency published a report on November 8 saying there was “credible” information that Iran was carrying out “activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.”

Sunday, November 20, 2011

If the global warming fraudsters can use anecdotal evidence, so can the deniers.

FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Alaska’s second-largest city is used to cold weather, but few residents expected record-breaking cold this early in the season.

Shawn Ross has lived in Fairbanks his entire life and says few people were prepared for this severe of a cold snap in mid-November.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (http://bit.ly/uxJMlG ) reports that for the second time in three days, Fairbanks set a new low temperature record on Thursday. A temperature of 41 degrees below zero — the first 40 below temperature of the season — was recorded at Fairbanks International Airport at 6:29 a.m.

The National Weather Service in Fairbanks says that broke the old record of 39 below set in 1969.

This video and pictures were collected on the corner of 7th and North Ave. in Milwaukee during the “Occupy Milwaukee” protest/takeover of the bridge. These appear to be children under the age of 18. They were also given cigarettes in exchange for their signatures. They were asked if it would be OK to contact them to enlist their help in getting signatures from their friends.

They should have had their failure announcement ready a long time ago. It is obvious they had no intention of making any serious budget cuts. Their failure announcement will go something like this: blame Republicans, blame Bush, blame Tea Party, blame Grover Norquist, blame FOX News, blah, blah, blah...

Washington (CNN) -- Members of the "super committee" charged with coming up with $1.2 trillion in budget cuts are focused on how to announce failure to reach a deal, Democratic and Republican aides confirmed to CNN Sunday.

While aides said no final decision had been made, they acknowledged that -- barring an unforeseen development -- an announcement of an end to negotiations is the most likely scenario.

Talks on trying to reach a deficit reduction agreement are essentially over and discussions are focused on a Monday announcement, a senior Democratic aide said.

Another senior Democratic source said, "No decisions or agreement has been reached concerning any announcement or how this will end. But, yes, the likely outcome is no agreement will be reached.